Cold Morning Heats Up with Big Fish

We knew it was going to be sunny and cold this morning and that there were 11mph winds forecast but that just made things a little more interesting. I met Tim and Jontelle Forbes down at the Atlantic Seafood dock at 7:30 this morning and with all three of us bundled up in layers, we headed out to fish the first of an incoming tide. Our first stop was at Tiger Island and it wasn't unusual for a fish to bite our jig and shrimp combo on the demo cast, which is what happened this morning! After that first fish the two anglers got busy and in no time were landing small, feisty and fun to catch Redfish measuring up to 17 3/4", just under the Slot size. We worked the entire island, finding Reds in most spots and then both Tim and Jontelle began to catch hungry Seatrout down deep. Every once in a while we were able to get into some sunshine and warm ourselves up. Jontelle spotted a huge Otter coming down to the shoreline to enter the water then she pointed out a majestic Bald Eagle that had landed in one of the oak trees to keep an eye on our catch. After we fished the area thoroughly, we made the run around to Eagans Creek and fished some dock pilings and boy was this the right move! I think it was Tim's first cast and BOOM! Big Fish On! He applied the pressure to keep the fish out of the pilings then played the fish patiently as it ran deep a number of times. But the fish was no match for Tim and after a good battle we netted a big "Tournament Redfish" that measured right at 26", just in the Slot. Tim went back to the same spot and again landed another big Slot Red and then he landed another! Finally there was a break for Jontelle to get her bait to the spot and she too had a strong hookup - and even stronger! Her fish fought hard and big but Jontelle worked it out of the structure, keeping the pressure on using her light tackle, and after long battle landed an Oversized 30 1/2" Redfish, putting her squarely in the lead of the 2015 Anglers Mark Bragging Rights Tournament (scroll down right side of this report to see standings). We continued to fish and I believe Tim and Jontelle had about 7 Slot Reds, the Oversized one, and we lost a couple of big ones to the pilings. We fished float rigs later over flooded oyster beds but had no real bites but as we headed in we knew we'd just had another great day of fishing here at Amelia Island, Florida!